


a hint of bittersweet

by Engineer104



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route Spoilers, Marriage Proposal, Post-Canon, very minor tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 11:40:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20173648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Engineer104/pseuds/Engineer104
Summary: With a future she never thought possible staring her in the face, Lysithea tries to let it go, but this time Felix is determined to be the more obstinate one.





	a hint of bittersweet

**Author's Note:**

> uh...first fic i've finished in a while and of course it was to appease my midnight angst monkey brain for a pairing i've shipped for approximately forty-eight hours. and i thought "well their supports thread is sweet <s>heh</s> but what about _angst_" and thus this thing was born <s>and no i don't care that this is definitely a rare pair</s>
> 
> minor spoilers for Golden Deer route plus **major** character spoilers (that you would've encountered if you've finished that route at least)
> 
> enjoy!!

She thought it nothing more than a brief dalliance after they reunited, when the mere sight of him dredged up memories she thought buried, a traveling mercenary where once she knew a stubborn and remarkably rude nobleman prone to occasional bouts of childishness

(Not unlike her, she thinks begrudgingly.)

But his gruff exterior hid a tenderness that surprised her. She still remembers how he thanked her for that first cake she baked him years ago, remembers it as vividly as she recalls the last page she read now that they sit face to face in the common room of a nearly vacant inn.

Her fingers hover over the ring - polished silver with an amethyst the same violet as her eyes - lying on the table separating them, heart pounding in her throat like it hasn’t since she last faced an enemy in battle. 

It is an enemy of sorts, this ring, representing a future she’ll never have.

But with that shock gripping her, with the regret squeezing the air from her lungs, is a longing she’s held close to her chest for longer than she can remember.

Pink taints his pale cheeks, and his eyes don’t quite meet hers. He frowns - almost scowls - too as if this meeting - the unspoken question hanging between them - is a nuisance. It’s just his way, she knows; he never did anything he absolutely didn’t want to.

She opens her mouth to speak of the flame in her chest and the swoop in her stomach...but the icy touch of fear in her blood stops her.

She pinches the cool metal between her fingertips and says, “I...can’t accept this.”

At last he looks her in the eye, lips parting in surprise before he says, “What?”

“I can’t...you’re asking me to marry you, aren’t you?” She rolls the ring between her fingers and sighs.

He nods, the slightest hint of that teasing, challenging smirk that makes her heart skip a beat on his face before it fades. “Isn’t that much obvious?”

She resists the urge to slide the ring onto her finger and sets it on the table, drawing her hands back to her lap before inhaling. “I can’t marry you then.”

She half-expects him to scowl again, but instead his eyebrows draw together. “Why not?” he demands. “Don’t you—“

“Yes,” she says, swallowing as if that’ll dampen her dry mouth. “I love you, and that’s exactly why I can’t.”

His eyes widen in shock before narrowing again. “What sort of excuse is that?”

“A perfectly reasonable one,” she tells him tartly. “If I marry you, I’m consigning you to—“ she bites her tongue; she can’t tell him, not with heat pricking at her eyes and a familiar lump stuck in her throat.

She’ll be damned if she cries in front of him, in public - like a child - especially over this. She’s made her peace with her fate, so why waste more tears over it?

“Consigning me to what?” he wonders. “If you’re worried I’ll regret marrying you then—“

“That’s not—not exactly it,” she concedes. Now it’s her turn to avoid his sharp gaze that demands - and deserves - an answer, but she can’t face him now.

She needs air.

Her chair’s legs scrape against the stone floor, and in a blur of dizzy motion - he calls after her, her name a startled shout - she bursts through the inn door. Immediately the sharp fingers of a winter Faerghus wind grip her

She shivers, huddling in a thin sliver of sunlight between awning and street. But darkness falls rapidly this far north, and it isn’t long before her trembles wrack her entire body.

She doesn’t turn when the door creaks open on rusty hinges, not even when his familiar, exasperated sigh fills her ears.

“Your cloak,” he says simply, and before she can turn to accept it he drapes it over her shoulders.

She clutches it gratefully, mumbling a thank you as warmth that has little to do with the cloak fills her chest.

They stand together in near-silence - except for their breathing and her shivering and his shifting feet crunching on the snow - before something...strikes her.

He deserves to know, she realizes. He deserves a better reason than simply that she can’t.

(She should’ve told him years ago.)

Her fingers find his hanging at his side. He gasps in surprise, and she forces herself to look up and meet his eyes.

“If you marry me,” she says in as steady a voice as she can manage, “you’ll be a widower by the time you’re thirty.”

He stares at her almost blankly - arithmetic is not one of his strengths - before his jaw drops. “What the—what the hell does that mean?” His voice seems to rise in pitch with each word, anger coloring them.

“Listen, felix...” She grips his fingers tighter and holds his gaze. “I...haven’t you ever wondered why I’m so strong in magic?”

“Because you work hard,” he says simply, almost insistently. “Why else?”

She bites her lip, and...maybe any other time she’d have it in her to be flattered or relieved, but now she just feels sick to her stomach while her heart pounds an unsteady beat. “I have two Crests,” she tells him, voice low.

His eyes pinch shut as he shakes his head. “I don’t—what does that have to do with anything?”

“I didn’t come by the second the—the usual way,” she admits.

“What do you mean?”

He looks so confused and angry and upset she wants to back out, to tell him it’s nothing and that yes of course she’ll marry him.

But now that she’s begun he’ll never let it go.

“There were...experiments done on me as a child,” she confesses quietly, her breath short. She squeezes his hand, grounding herself as those awful memories - of men in masks with their needles, their fingers colder than this biting wind - threaten to overwhelm her. “They gave me a second Crest but at a cost.”

His hand grips hers back just as tightly, but she can’t tell if he’s comforting her or reassuring himself. “What was that cost, Lysithea?” he murmurs, low and intense.

She sighs. “A shorter lifespan,” she says, “my wh-whole future...gone.”

She sniffs when the first tear falls from the corner of her eye, staring at the ground almost more exasperated with herself than aggrieved. But there’s no mistaking the heaviness in her chest as she continues, “I-I’ll be dead in a few years, and you’ll be—you’ll be alone again.”

A few more sniffles is all it takes to collect herself, but then his hands take her shoulders and he tugs her towards him. “Who were those bastards that hurt you?”

An absurd giggle bursts from her. She wipes at her eyes, smiling slightly when he scowls at her. “They’re already gone,” she says. “We took care of them years ago.”

It takes but a moment for his eyes to widen in understanding and his fingers to tighten on her arms, but then he’s wrapping his around her and pulling her against his chest. The sudden affection - he’s rarely so blatant - startles a squeak out of her, but she easily sinks into his warmth and inhales his scent.

He buries his face in her hair and grumbles, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

She stiffens at the harshness in his tone, her own hackles rising in response, but then he continues, “How long did you spend baking just to make something sweet I’d like?” He pulls away enough to look her in the eye, gloved hand sliding up her neck to cup her jaw. “How many times did I tell you not while you did it anyway?”

The intensity in his gaze holds her in place, makes her blood rush faster and her mouth dry. “I...”

“You’re even more pig-headed than I am,” he tells her, “so don’t think you can’t find a way to take back your future.”

Her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth, and for once she’s at a loss for words. “Felix...that was something almost silly.”

(Even so, her face still warms at the memory and her own childish insistence she would coerce him into liking something sweet.)

“So? You put in all that effort for something _silly_,” he hisses, “yet you won’t for something as precious as your own damn life?”

“That was—this is different,” she insists. “I’ve lived with this for most of my life, so I know—“

“You have time,” he retorts. “You’re still strong enough to fight - stronger than you were as a child - aren’t you? I didn’t fall in love with a weakling.”

From anyone else that might’ve been an insult, but from him it feels like an affirmation.

“And if you do die...” He pauses, eyes slipping shut as he swallows. “It doesn’t mean...don’t insult my own strength, Lysithea.”

She cups his face with both hands as that lump returns to her throat. “I just...I don’t want you to lose me and...I don’t want to lose you when I can’t keep up with you anymore.”

“You won’t,” he promises.

“I’m dying, Felix, and—“

“I don’t care,” he cuts her off. “You still have a future, Lysithea, and if you want I...” His voice lowers, more tender as he continues, “I want to share it and my strength with you.”

She sighs and shudders one last time before a single sob bursts from her.

And then she laughs through the tears, because her future, no matter how short it would be, never looked brighter.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you liked it!! comments and kudos are appreciated <3


End file.
